said, constituted a son in paradise by the grace which afterwards he lost through his trans- gression. 12. In this way, it is the taking of our sins upon Himself by the Lord Christ that is signi- fied in the genealogy of Matthew, while in the genealogy of Luke it is the abolition of our sins by the Lord Christ that is expressed. In accordance with these ideas, the one details the names in the descending scale, and the other in the ascending. For when the apostle says, “God sent His Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin,”700 he refers to the taking of our sins upon Himself by Christ. But when he adds, “for sin, to condemn sin in the flesh,”701 he ex- presses the expiation of sins. Consequently Matthew traces the succession downwards from David through Solomon, in connection with whose mother it was that he sinned; while Luke 107 carries the genealogy upwards to the same David through Nathan,702 by which prophet God took away703 his sin.704 The number, also, which Luke follows does most certainly best indicate the taking away of sins. For inasmuch as in Christ, who Himself had no sin, there is assuredly no iniquity allied to the iniquities of men which He bore in His flesh, the number adopted by Matthew makes forty when Christ is excepted. On the contrary, inasmuch as, by clearing us of all sin and purging us, He places us in a right relation to His own and His Father’s righteousness (so that the apostle’s word is made good: “But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit”705), in the number used by Luke we find included both Christ Himself, with whom the enumeration begins, and God, with whom it closes; and the sum becomes thus seventy-seven, which denotes the thorough remission and abolition of all sins. This perfect removal of sins the Lord Himself also clearly represented under the mystery of this number, when He said that the person sinning ought to be forgiven not only seven times, but even unto seventy times seven. 706 13. A careful inquiry will make it plain that it is not without some reason that this latter number is made to refer to the purging of all sins. For the number ten is shown to be, as 700 Rom. viii. 3. [Comp. Revised Version margin.—R.] 701 Ut de peccato damnaret peccatum in carne. [Revised Version, “And as an offering for sin,” etc.—R.] 702 2 Sam. xii. 1–14. 703 Expiavit. 704 In his Retractations (ii. 16) Augustin refers to this sentence in order to chronicle a correction. He tells us that, instead of saying that “Luke carries the genealogy upwards to the same David through Nathan, by which prophet God took away his sin,” he should have said “by a prophet of which name,” etc., because although the name was the same, the progenitor was a different person from the prophet Nathan. 705 1 Cor. vi. 17. 706 Matt. xviii. 22. [Augustin apparently follows the rendering: “seventy times and seven” (see Revised Version margin), accepted by Meyer and many others. His whole argument turns upon the presence of the number “el- even” as a factor.—R.] 233 Of the Reason Why Forty Generations (Not Including Christ Himself) are Found…